1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates to a method for cleaning a reversible thermosensitive recording medium, and an image processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A data carrier for a tag for process quality control, and physical distribution management in an industrial plant is widely used to record and manage various information characterizing an object such as serial number, and location information of an object, and is in greater need along with informatization of society. However, the increase of the used amount of the data carrier leads to large amount of waste, when the data carriers are disposed of. This is a considerable problem, nowadays the downsizing the total amount of waste is one of the huge social issues.
The data carriers such as a wireless tag, a transponder, a RFID, and a noncontact IC card in card-shaped, in which information is exchanged by electromagnetic wave, have an excellent feature relative to a bar code which optically records information, such that read-writable data even though the data carriers cannot be seen directly in a box such as a corrugated box, and highly secured. Because the information in IC chip cannot be read by a human, it is highly desired to add visual information which can be made out to the data carriers. However, the merit of recycling the data carrier which takes advantage of the characteristics of the electrically rewritable IC chip may be lost when the additional visual information is not rewritten. Thus, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) Nos. 7-68978, and 2002-170087 disclose that the data carrier is recycled by rewriting optically recorded information using the reversible thermosensitive recording material.
The method for recycling the data carrier with the reversible thermosensitive recording material reduces the quantity of disposal of the data carrier, and is effective to cost-reduction. On the other hand, the once used data carrier must be collected to rewrite information, and rewrite thermally the visual information on the surface of the reversible thermosensitive recording material. These additional works are inevitable. When the data carrier is used for process quality control in assembly plants of devices, the data carrier itself is smeared by dust and oil in the working environment, and marking with a marker or pencil. In case that the smeared reversible thermosensitive recording medium is rewritten, a thermal head may also be smeared, which may cause quality failure in printing, and shorten the printing apparatus life. When the data carrier is repeatedly used, the cleaning of the data carrier is often necessary. Thus, it is necessary to introduce an additional step of cleaning.
The recycle of the data carrier with the reversible thermosensitive recording material proposes in principal environmentally friendly and economical solution, but the working efficacy may be reduced in practice. Thus, the solution for avoiding such problem is strongly desired. The cleaning system including, for example, detergent, the heating system (JP-A Nos. 6-210957, 2004-223872, 9-58142), the brush system (JP-A Nos. 6-127730, 6-203257, 7-282315), and the immersion system (JP-A No. 7-112584) have been taken into consideration.
JP-A No. 6-210957 discloses a method for cleaning a reversible thermosensitive recording medium with a cleaning solution. This proposes the utilization of the color change by phase change, and the cleaning solution does not adversely affect to the recording condition of the reversible thermosensitive recording medium. However, the reversible thermosensitive recording medium may loose its function of forming relatively developed condition and erased condition by the difference of heating temperature and/or cooling rate following to heating using an electron-donating coloring compound and an electron-accepting compound, and a print head of a printer used for print may be eroded, when the commonly used cleaning solution is applied.
In the reversible thermosensitive recording medium the break or bend occurred by the above-described handling grows to cracks, the cleaning solution impinges therein, and then the function of the reversible thermosensitive recording medium is damaged.